67 replies to this topic

[JuliusColtranePille]

hey dear community,

as february gets older the next alpha release gets closer.

i would like to accumulate pics, general news, alpha 9 related discussions (concerning rather alpha-9-specific issues), roadmap-wiki-tickets-comments and stuff here.



let it begin,
cheers!

[Pureon]

Here's a clip showing the Roman ballista and some of the Roman units


It's quite likely that some of those units have changed since I filmed this.


Another video showing some of the ships that we've animated for Alpha 9:


Most of the existing rowing ships now have rowing animations.


Here's a Roman helmet I modeled and textured recently:


Before anyone comments about it being low res - in-game the helmet is tiny

[Mythos_Ruler]

Sworn enemies.

Attached Thumbnails

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[Geek377]

Nice clips Pureon, I'm gonna have some fun with the new Roman ballista
And Michael, that could be some really good PR stuff. (hi-res implied)

[L'ethu]

Awesome, i can't wait to see the release.

[ribez]

+1 for rowing animations

now ships lacks of only 3 things:

• smooth rotation when the ship change direction
• wakes
• graphic of row that enter the water

[Wijitmaker]

Maybe this has been pointed out somewhere else... but, just in case, it is kind of odd how when the origin of a particle leaves the screen it makes all of the particles disappear that are attached to it.

Is there a way to treat particles different than models for when they are clipped from rendering in the view?

[Jeru]

Holy crap!

[historic_bruno]

afeder, on 12 February 2012 - 08:26 PM, said:

Can we do this? I hope we can.

Yes.

Wijitmaker, on 12 February 2012 - 08:45 PM, said:

Maybe this has been pointed out somewhere else... but, just in case, it is kind of odd how when the origin of a particle leaves the screen it makes all of the particles disappear that are attached to it.

Is there a way to treat particles different than models for when they are clipped from rendering in the view?

Sounds like the same type of issue as for shadows, the model is arbitrarily culled at a certain distance outside the camera view, which doesn't always look correct

[Pureon]

ribez, on 12 February 2012 - 04:42 PM, said:

+1 for rowing animations

now ships lacks of only 3 things:

• smooth rotation when the ship change direction
• wakes
• graphic of row that enter the water

The next improvement I'd like to see is dynamic sail animations - When a ship begins to move the sail will inflate based on the ship's speed.

historic_bruno, on 12 February 2012 - 09:36 PM, said:

Sounds like the same type of issue as for shadows, the model is arbitrarily culled at a certain distance outside the camera view, which doesn't always look correct

Although to be fair, I was fully zoomed in when recording that video, and I doubt any gamer would be that close to the action in a real match. Since the reason it gets culled is to benefit performance, I'd leave it as it is at present

[Ykkrosh]

We compute bounding boxes of particle emitters correctly (I think), and treat them like any other prop on the model. The problem might be that we ignore the bounding boxes of all props when deciding to cull a unit during rendering (and if the unit is culled then no props are drawn). That should be fixed to either use the correct bounding box, or to cull and submit each prop model independently.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I think the issue is when there is a registered "hit." The smoke from the catapult projectile instantly disappears.

[Echelon9]

Mythos_Ruler said:

1329094569[/url]' post='234107']
I think the issue is when there is a registered "hit." The smoke from the catapult projectile instantly disappears.

It also happens when closely zoomed and the projectile moves off the edge of the screen during flight. The trailing particles disappear concurrently due to culling.

[hhyloc]

Mythos_Ruler, on 11 February 2012 - 08:57 PM, said:

Sworn enemies.

Nice screenshot!

[vts]

Ykkrosh, on 12 February 2012 - 10:58 PM, said:

We compute bounding boxes of particle emitters correctly (I think), and treat them like any other prop on the model. The problem might be that we ignore the bounding boxes of all props when deciding to cull a unit during rendering (and if the unit is culled then no props are drawn). That should be fixed to either use the correct bounding box, or to cull and submit each prop model independently.

I'm quite confident that the particle emitter bounds are computed correctly; I remember inspecting them during the selection box update. I believe that update also added a method to grab a recursive version of a model's box (before that I think the bounds didn't include props recursively), so perhaps there's still an old call to the non-recursive version lingering somewhere in the projectile code. I'll have a look and see if it's an easy fix.

* EDIT: committed r11062, try again now.

[JuliusColtranePille]

ribez, on 12 February 2012 - 04:42 PM, said:

+1 for rowing animations

now ships lacks of only 3 things:

• smooth rotation when the ship change direction
• wakes
• graphic of row that enter the water

and a little bit of swell (sea disturbance) as it was in AOE III would be very nice!

regards!


are there any updates on q-bot?
and i think spahbod's supernice random-maps should be implemented

[Pureon]

(Lets get this topic back on track guys!!)


Look here everyone, a new Roman building:

[ribez]

Pureon, on 15 February 2012 - 09:12 PM, said:

(Lets get this topic back on track guys!!)


Look here everyone, a new Roman building:

oh... lovely

it's barracks?

[Pureon]

ribez, on 15 February 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

oh... lovely

it's barracks?

Yes it is